


Yet To Be A Legend

by Para



Series: Yet To Be A Legend [1]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-22 20:40:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6093397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Para/pseuds/Para
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam and Lilith had always been very strict.  Agatha was to leave her locket off when she slept on Friday and Saturday nights, and to wear it at all other times.</p><p>Then they told her to take it off.</p><p>Tags and possibly warnings will be added as chapters are, since I'm not 100% sure what exactly I'm going to write yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ...I've been resisting the urge to post this for at least two months and I'm giving up now. This is going to be low priority for updates, but I really like the tone so I'll get back to it eventually.
> 
> This will be totally AU; I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing about the time windows and the Other (that is, if they're even going to be included) but definitely it won't happen like canon. Although it's not _too_ terribly different, the Other war happened, Klaus has an empire, etc.

Agatha had always wanted to see Mechanicsburg. It sounded almost like a fey land, mad and enchanting, the origin of history’s greatest heroes and monsters alike, but Mechanicsburg was real. She’d thought, vaguely, of maybe going someday after she finished university, but Adam and Lilith hated Heterodyne stories for reasons that were never quite explained, so she never expected them to go with her. It would be her own adventure, her reward when she graduated.

She’d never expected them to tell her to leave her locket off, either. Lilith had always been very strict; Agatha was to leave it off while she slept during the weekends, but must be sure to wear it at all other times. (Adam had been equally certain, but more gentle in his insistence.) They had said, as long as Agatha could remember, that it was necessary for the science to work correctly. Agatha always had her worst headaches at the end of the week and felt best on Sundays, so she believed them. But she’d accepted that she would never know exactly what the locket did.

She noticed that Adam and Lilith were making preparations before her eighteenth birthday, but assumed they were for a party and tactfully ignored them, staying in her room or out of the house as much as possible when they seem to be busy. She might have been right; there was, indeed, a party on her birthday, with all her friends and three different cakes. Small cakes, only one of them larger than Agatha’s hand and that one barely so, but they were delicious, and plenty for the handful of friends Agatha had. Oana and her twin brother Matei were the last to leave, well into the night. Agatha had tried dating him, and Oana had laughed herself sick when they both tried to apologetically break up with the other two weeks before.

The next day there were still preparations. Agatha had thought they were cleanup from the party, and offered to help; Lilith sent her to the market to buy a list of food that didn’t spoil. Agatha knew exactly where to find everything on the list; Adam and Lilith often bought things like that for their friends, and while Lilith bought them most of the time, Agatha had gone before.

The next day Lilith woke Agatha before sunrise, and told her to pack quickly, and to bring her locket but not put it back on. They left as the sun and the city came awake, Adam and Lilith wrapped up in concealing layers and Agatha still fighting back yawns.

Most of Adam and Lilith’s friends were waiting for them outside the gates, and as soon as Lilith finished going through a checklist of supplies they began a trip through the Wastelands. A lot of it was on roads, but not all; sometimes they would all move off and walk parallel to the road when Sirius heard something or someone coming along the road until she said whoever it was had passed, and sometimes they took shortcuts through the fields or forests to another road. They camped at night, behind traps that Adam and Lilith taught everyone to make and keeping watch in shifts. Rogue clanks and constructs attacked often; the traps usually only served as warning. Almost everyone was injured but Agatha.

Agatha was burning; she’d gotten it out of Lilith that they were going to Mechanicsburg, but no one would say why, or why they were traveling in such a strange and dangerous way. Her hands itched and her mind raced; she took over building the traps around the camps, and built more, built them larger and stronger and _better_ , twisted and balanced branches and roots and leaves to make them lethal. She kept working even as she walked, exhausted and twisting vines together in her hands, realizing she hadn't slept in—in—she didn't know, after the first few hours of the trip everything was a frantic, desperate blur.

She needed to do something—her hands were shaking, no, they only felt like they were; they were steadier than ever on the vines, sticks, bones she collected and worked together; when had she broken that rock so it was sharp enough to be a knife? She could see how it was done, the angles, the lines it fractured along, but when—

Her breath felt different too, it felt like her breath was racing like she’d just run all the way home and then back to class, but it wasn’t, instead it kept catching, hitching like she’d been startled, but nothing startled her, she didn’t jump, even when there was a sudden noise or animal leaping out she didn’t feel surprised, it felt like she’d known, like she’d already been moving before she heard or saw anything to react to. Her breath, when she listened, counted, searched, was calm and steady, only slightly deeper to accommodate the exercise of walking. Her pulse—no, her pulse _was_ racing, heart hammering in her thumbs and throat just like it felt.

She dreamed, and the universe spun out below her in stars and circles, like a map, like a blueprint, like _toys_ , and she reached—

No one seemed surprised.

Agatha stood in front of Lilith, able to feel her breath shaking, doubting it actually was. It felt like her eyes were wide; she didn’t know if they actually were. She was still twisting vines together in her hands; they’d be a tripwire, at the end of the day. “What’s _happening_ to me?”

Lilith hesitated. “Well—I suppose you’re breaking through.”

“ _This_ is breakthrough?” Breakthrough was poorly described, in itself; its effects were recorded, its meaning, its causes were speculated about, but the actual experience was only recorded in terms of what the sparks did. The actual experience was terrifying. “I don’t want to hurt anyone! Why would you—why would you _bring_ me here if you knew I was going to be dangerous? I should be in town, with guards, and Doctor Beetle, and—”

Lilith’s voice was calm as it cut Agatha off. “ _If_ you are going to destroy anything—and not all sparks do—you should be out here, with people who know how to get out of the way, and only trees to destroy. And we _are_ going to Mechanicsburg.”

“ _Why_?”

Lilith hesitated. Agatha could see it, the way her mouth opened, the way her eyes flicked aside and then stared at Agatha before she answered. “You’ll see once we get there.”

“ _No!_ ” Agatha dropped the vines, grabbed Lilith’s shirt, pulled their faces close together. “No, you’re taking us all somewhere dangerous while _I’m_ dangerous and putting everyone in danger, you are at least going to explain _why_ , I—”

Lilith looked afraid.

“—no, I… I’m sorry….” Agatha let go, threw Lilith away, she didn’t know which, and ran.

“Agatha!” It was Lilith’s voice first, then others. Agatha ignored them, kept running. “Come back!”

They should have been able to catch her.

They didn’t.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are a lot of dangerous things in the Wastelands, but also some ridiculous ones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am... not very happy with the ending of this, but ehh it's as good as it'll get without doubling the chapter length. I am also not totally happy with the tone, but it's better than it was in the first version of this chapter that I wrote and I doubt I'd be able to keep up with the first chapter forever, so I have decided it's good enough.

Agatha ran.

Her lungs burned with oxygen and the lack of it, and her legs and stomach burned from exertion, and her skin burned from scratches she earned by falling or tearing past thorns. The forest of the Wastelands streamed past her, huge old trees twisted by age and scarred by claws, thorn thickets with branches thicker than her arm that seemed to move more than the wind could explain, bones scattered across the earth. She saw no animals.

Her foot caught on a stone and she fell, hit the ground with a thud that she heard first, and only felt second. She’d tried to catch herself on her hands but had only managed to hurt them; they stung, and so did her knees. Agatha groaned, and clambered back to her feet. That had been harder than the other falls; she’d caught herself on hands and knees and scrambled up to keep running before, not sprawled all over the ground.

… _Bleeding_ , she noted when she raised a hand to wipe away the dirt and leaves on her face. Her palm was bleeding. So was the other when she checked, a slowly growing sheen of red, although it was barely visible in the—

—dark. It was getting dark, that was why it was hard to see the blood among the dirt; it was getting dark out. It was still early, the sun wouldn’t truly set for hours, but twilight came heavy and early in the forest, and Agatha was alone in the Wastelands and _it was getting dark_.

Agatha needed to get—needed to get back. Needed to find Lilith and Adam and everyone else again. She couldn’t be in the Wastelands alone at night, she’d die, something would find her and eat her and she’d die, she needed to find her way back _now_ before it was really dark under the trees and she wasn’t able to see anything and all the worst dangers came out—

She wasn’t sure, really, what the worst dangers _were_. Rogue clanks and vicious, escaped constructs had attacked the camp at night, but they’d also attacked during the day, and there were stories of worse things, of trees that could pull themselves out of the ground and hunt to eat, poisonous mists, parasites that would take over a living body and walk it into a town to release their eggs, entire caravans that were found dead on the road, without a mark on them—

Agatha _needed to get back_. She turned around, and scanned the dirt. She didn’t know _exactly_ which direction she’d come from before she fell, but it wasn’t really dark yet, just half dark, she should be able to find—disturbed leaves, or broken twigs, something—

A twig snapped. It wasn’t from under Agatha’s feet. It was from the direction she’d come from, and—there was _nothing_ that could be out here that was good for her. Agatha backed away. If she had a weapon—but she didn’t, there wasn’t anything, there weren’t even _vines_ here—

The figure that emerged was… a man. More or less. Certainly male. Certainly not human. Agatha took another step back and looked for a branch, a large rock, something—

He was dressed like old-fashioned cavalry, and might have been handsome if he hadn’t had purple skin, graceful fingers that turned into long and curling claws, and pointed ears. And a too-long face, the reason for which was clear when he smiled; all his teeth were fangs, grown sharp and several times the length of human teeth, and his jaw must have grown to match. He had a sword, but it looked like the least dangerous thing about him. “Vell hallo, sveethot. Vot iz hyu doing out in de Vastelends all alone?”

—the nerve! Acting like some—some smug shop owner, asking her if she was sure that she knew what type of wrench she needed! Agatha scowled at him. “It’s none of your business,” she snapped.

He shrugged, unaffected, and took a few more steps closer. “Hy guess not, bot iz unusual, yah? Not many pretty gurls go runnink around de Vastelends by herself.”

Agatha glared, and took a few deep breaths to remind herself that attacking anyone who could safely wander around the Wastelands alone would not end well for her, no matter how much he _really deserved it_. “ _You’re_ in the Wastelands.”

“Vell, yez,” he kept smiling lazily, kept approaching. He was still two meters away and it wasn’t _nearly_ enough in Agatha’s opinion. “Bot Hy iz a jäger.”

—oh. Oh, this was even worse than Agatha had thought. She took another step back, reached up to comb her hair out of her eyes like it would _matter_ how well she could see when he attacked. Bits of dead leaves fluttered to the ground. “Does the Baron know you’re out here?”

“Ah!” He grinned, brighter, and stopped to pose, flicking a hand through his hair. “Hy iz a _vild_ jäger. Ve iz de goot-lookink vuns, hyu see. De Baron iz jealous dot all de gurls like os, so ve dun go vith him.” And then he was in front of her, grinning from a foot away, and the back of his claws brushed lightly over her cheek. Agatha jumped back. “Vot hyu say? Hyu _like_ eet?”

“—you crass _thug_!” Agatha punched him, and he jerked back with a startled yelp. How dare he! The nerve of that—that— _monster_! “How _dare_ you touch me! Try it again and I will _crush every bone you have to **powder**_!”

Someone was laughing. The jäger looked annoyed, and turned to yell at a tree to the side. “Schot op, Oggie!”

“Hit him again, gurl!” a voice called out of the tree, in between laughter. “Dot iz de best ting Hy see in _veeks_!”

“Iz not dot fonny!”

“Nah, Hy tink eet iz,” a third voice added from a second tree.

Agatha glared into one tree and then the other, but couldn't see anyone until there was a rustle of leaves and their occupants landed on the ground in front of them. Two more men—two more jägers, Agatha assumed, and they looked a bit more like it. They had the same claws, the same elongated face and fangs that caused it. The green one's face was too wide, too, and covered in short fur; the other one had tan skin and sun-blond hair like Agatha sometimes saw on farmer boys who came into Beetleburg's market, but he had a single ram's horn growing out of the curly sheep hair, and his feet were bare because they only had two giant, clawed toes.

Some of the rage leaked away, abruptly, and Agatha realized that punching jägermonsters was probably not a good idea. (Probably because of the breakthrough, it made her attack a jägermonster, it made her attack Lilith, what else would it do?) “Um… sorry,” she said, and edged out of the purple jägermonster's reach as the other two approached. “For punching you. I'm not very rational right now.”

“Nah, dun be sorry!” The green jägermonster grinned like his head was about to split open, and casually elbowed the purple jägermonster as the newest two reached him. The purple one glared and elbowed him back. “Dis eediot deserves lots worse den _dot_. He iz Maxim, by de vay, und Hy iz Dimo und dis iz Oggie. Vy hyu tink hyu iz crazy now?”

“Um….” What did jägers think of sparks? They'd all been made for sparks, but for _specific_ sparks, but they worked for the Baron, but these ones didn't, what if they liked killing any sparks that weren't Heterodynes? Well, that probably wouldn't put Agatha in much more danger if they did, jägers liked killing anyway. A breeze blew past the jägers and into Agatha's face, making scratches that she hadn't even realized were there start to sting. She started rubbing at them carefully, feeling for dirt or leaves. “Lilith said I'm breaking through, and I guess she's right, it doesn't feel much like I thought breakthrough would, it's mostly very scary and angry, but I don't know of anything else it might be, it's definitely very mad.”

The green and purple jäger traded looks, while the horned one leaned on a poleaxe and stared at her in open curiosity. “So she chase hyu into de Vastelands?”

“No!” All three jägers gave her startled looks, and Agatha scowled back at them. “She would never! She did… say it was safer for me to be out of the town… but she’s here too, she didn’t throw me out, she would never!”

“Hy dun hear ennyvun elze near here,” the purple jäger said.

“That’s… that’s true, I… should really get back… before it gets dark….” Agatha tried to peer past the jägers, but they were blocking her view to where (she thought) she’d come from, and the shadows would have hidden any scuffed dirt or broken twigs she might have used to find her path. She hoped that was all they were hiding. (With three jägers nearby, it might even be true; certainly they could have killed a lot of the other dangerous things in the area, there might not be much left to hide in shadows.)

The green jäger shrugged. “Dark iz not dot bad. Half de tings in here ken’t see hyu den, iz verra easy to ambush dem.”

“But I won’t be able to see at _all_!” Agatha’s eyes were starting to sting, matching the scratches on her face. She still didn’t know if the jägers were even going to let her go, or wanted to toy with her first before they killed her.

The horned jäger looked uncertain. “Ve… ken help hyu find… vereffer hyu iz from? Hy dun tink dere iz moch near here, bot if hyu valked ve ken follow hyu.”

Agatha tried to scrub the tears out of her eyes with her hand, then remembered it was also covered in dirt and blood and who knew what else, and left them. “We were traveling, we weren’t in a city.”

“Ho, so hyu pipple iz close! Ve ken do dot.” The horned jäger grinned; the green one rolled his eyes.

The purple jäger shrugged. “Ve iz not doink ennyting elze,” he told the green one.

“Yah, hokay, fine, ve get hyu beck to hyu friends,” the green jäger said, and the horned one beamed at Agatha. She gave the horned one the most grateful smile she could manage, since the green one was already turning away. “Chust dun _tell_ ennyvun, Oggie is gun ruin all hour reputashons like dis, iz not effen a _kid_ dis time….”

All three jägers went to inspect the stone that had tripped Agatha, and from there the trail she’d left. It seemed to involve a surprising amount of bickering, which involved a surprising amount of punching each other, but that meant Agatha could follow almost without being noticed. And it was, she had to admit, a very good thing the jägers were tracking her for her; Agatha had thought she’d been running mostly straight, but it turned out she’d actually been turning often, every time she fell, or dodged around a tree or thicket of thorns.

The wind picked up after a handful of minutes, trying to blow Agatha’s hair in front of her face, and the green jäger dropped back to walk casually by Agatha's side while the other two kept bickering. (The horned jäger whacked the other over the head with the handle of his poleaxe, and the purple one howled about that wasn’t fair, swords didn’t have dull edges.)

Agatha eyed the green jäger, but he didn’t make any move to touch her, only walked with an obviously casual interest in the nearby trees. “Vot hyu name?”

Oh. Well, Agatha _had_ been rude. Not that manners quite applied when she thought she was about to be eaten, but since it looked like she _wasn’t_ …. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m Agatha.”

“Agatha vot?”

“Agatha Clay, from Beetleburg. Adam—my father—owns—owned a machine shop, and my mother Lilith gave piano and dance lessons.”

The green jäger gave Agatha a startled look. “Hyu momma brought hyu out here?”

“She said it would be safer if I wasn’t in town,” Agatha explained. It _did_ sound kind of odd, put that way. “And she and Adam used to travel with my father and uncle and I think my uncle might have been a spark, so I guess she would know.”

“Bot hyu poppa iz not a schpark?”

“I never met him, so I’m not sure.” The green jäger gave her another confused look, so Agatha clarified. “Adam and Lilith adopted me, after my uncle disappeared.”

“Huh.” The green jäger stared intently into the trees. “Vell, Hy tink hyu iz a verra speshul gurl, Miz Agatha.”

He did not offer to explain, and Agatha didn’t quite dare to demand one.

He stayed next to her for the rest of the walk while the other two bickered, although he didn’t say much more, just stared intently at the trees like he was looking for something. Agatha considered trying to make conversation, then gave up. She had no idea what jägers considered acceptable topics of conversation, and they seemed not to be easily offended so far, but maybe she just hadn’t happened to say anything offensive yet. It seemed safer to let them decide what to talk about. And Agatha was behind on traps for the evening now, she ought to keep an eye out for useful-looking vines or sticks, which would be harder while talking.

Twenty minutes later she’d only found one vine, and was idly coiling it to carry more easily when the green jäger went stiff beside her. “Miz—”

“Lilith Clay,” Lilith’s voice filled in, strict, and Agatha’s head shot up.

“Lilith!” Agatha dropped the vine to run forward. Lilith, Sirius, and Mercury had (it looked like) emerged from behind a thicket; the purple and horned jägers were standing to the side, staring at Lilith instead of bickering. Agatha ignored them to hug Lilith. “I’m sorry, I was—I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Lilith hugged her back. “I’m glad you’re safe. Assuming you are.” She held Agatha at arm’s length, and looked over her critically. “What are all these scratches?”

Agatha ducked her head automatically. “Just… thorns, and from falling. Nothing that bad.”

Lilith sighed. “We should check them for poison and infection, then, but you’ll probably be fine.” She pulled Agatha over to her side and kept her arm on Agatha’s shoulders like she was still ten years old, but now of all times Agatha really shouldn’t object. Lilith looked back up at the green jäger. “Thank you for bringing my daughter back safely.”

“…She’s a verra speshul gurl,” the green jäger said. “How could ve not?”

“She is,” Lilith said blandly. Agatha frowned, but stomped down on the urge to demand an explanation for it immediately. She could later. Lilith glanced between the green jäger, the other two, and Agatha, and then gave Agatha a gentle push toward Sirius and Mercury. “Why don’t you three go back to the camp. I’ll catch up after I talk to the jägers.”

Agatha backed up to stand between Sirius and Mercury, but frowned. “But—”

“I’ll be fine, Agatha, don’t worry,” Lilith said.

“Hy vould like to tok, Hy tink,” the green jäger said, carefully neutral.

“The camp isn’t far,” Sirius said. Her ears were up, alert and searching for sounds, but not afraid. “I’ll be able to hear if anyone yells.”

“And Adam will want to see that you’re safe,” Mercury said.

He would. He would be worrying, although telling him that Agatha was safe and Lilith was alone with jägers wouldn't necessarily be an improvement. Agatha sighed. "Can you come back quickly? He'll worry about you too."

"Hoy, ve iz not gun hurt Miz—" the horned jäger started to complain, but was cut off by the purple one punching him in the side of the head.

Agatha was not reassured. The jägers had been nice, but… they were still jägers. Their entire purpose was to kill people.

Sirius wouldn’t lie about being able to hear, though, and with the jägers and Lilith all wanting to talk, Agatha didn’t have much choice, so she nodded reluctantly. “Okay. Just… talk fast, I guess.”

“We will.”

Agatha nodded, hesitated again, and reluctantly started walking away. Sirius nudged her into a slightly different direction, and they left for the camp.


End file.
